About the Cover Artist Meg McLean

"Plein air painting is for me the best of the best," says artist Meg McLean of Lyme, N.H. &emsp;For 50 years, she has painted out in the natural world, where she finds the light most convincing. McLean often travels to where she wants to paint via a kayak. In it, she includes a pochade box — a portable lightweight painter's travel box — to bring her supplies and sets up on a small easel. She uses this handy box in other places where she paints plein air. &emsp;Among plein air's challenges, she notes, are the shifting sun, weather conditions and interruptions. "It's always a race against time because the light changes so quickly; it's like a dance," she says. "And then a UPS truck will park right in front of what you're painting." &emsp;The painting on the cover of this issue, "Not Lots, Grafton Pond," is one she created while in her kayak having what she calls a "loon's eye view." After paddling around, she noticed the reflection of a house on the lake that reminded her of John Constable's famous painting, "Willy Lott's Cottage." &emsp;"I'm not interested in painting 'things,'" she notes. "I'm looking for interesting shapes and colors." She also paints to capture a sense of place. &emsp;The more she paints, the more she strives for simplicity in shapes. She laughs, describing how her detailed, illustrator side fights with her painter side, which wants to keep things simple. She distinguishes between color and value. Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. It gives a three-dimensional look, an atmospheric perspective different from a linear perspective, she says, although it's possible to create depth with color, too. There's a saying, she shares, "Color gets all the credit, but value does all the hard work." &emsp;McLean always carries a sketchpad and pencil in her purse, prepared to capture something that strikes her. Clouds are among her favorite subjects to paint: "Trying to capture their fleeting shapes and hues adds to the frantic calorie-burning aspect of plein air painting. And, one hopes, to the energy in the brushwork of the finished piece." &emsp;She also enjoys painting water scenes and travels to Monhegan and Stonington lakes in Maine, where the "light is incredible." &emsp;She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Hampshire before earning her Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She later moved east "for the hills, history and lobster rolls." &emsp;Her long list of solo, juried and group exhibits includes Boston's Copley Society of Art (to which she belongs) and others in Newport, Hanover, Lyme and Lebanon, N.H., in addition to winning many awards of merit. &emsp;McLean describes her work as more of a calling than a career. "I can't NOT paint; it's absolutely second nature," she says. "It's the way I see the world, looking at everything as pictures and paintings."